― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Sunday, 4 September 2005 14:26 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm sure others will get the re-issue treatment in due course - to be hoped for, anyway.
― Tom May (Tom May), Sunday, 4 September 2005 14:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― I Ain't No Addict, Whoever Heard of a Junkie as Old as Me? (noodle vague), Sunday, 4 September 2005 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sundar (sundar), Sunday, 4 September 2005 14:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 4 September 2005 14:56 (eighteen years ago) link
Inside Van Der Graaf Generator (2005) Progressive rock pioneers Van Der Graaf Generator opened doors for groups including Genesis and Pink Floyd and remains one of the most influential yet unappreciated bands of the genre. This inside look features rare archival performance footage, plus critical reviews and in-depth analysis of the band by former Van der Graaf members Judge Smith, Nic Potter and David Jackson, as well as a team of prominent music critics and rock journalists.
Van Der Graaf Generator: Godbluff Live (2004) Recorded on September 27th, 1975, prog rock legends Van Der Graaf Generator take to the stage to deliver some astounding rock sounds. Recorded on a tour of France, the show concentrates on the "Godbluff" album.
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Sunday, 4 September 2005 17:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 4 September 2005 17:43 (eighteen years ago) link
And on a side note, I have a VHS of a VDGG tribute band called Van Der Graf Jr. that was shot at Barnsdall Park's auditorium, where today's Arthurfest is occuring.
― nickn (nickn), Sunday, 4 September 2005 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Monday, 19 September 2005 11:13 (eighteen years ago) link
No Americanization just a sweeter bulk import deal, according to Artist-shop. I'll be sitting next to Phil in the waiting room.
― doug watson (solid air), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― shadeball (chaki), Friday, 10 February 2006 11:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Deluxe (Damian), Friday, 10 February 2006 13:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 February 2006 13:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― blackmail (blackmail.is.my.life), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Raw, Uncompromising, and Noodly (noodle vague), Saturday, 4 March 2006 20:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Stormy Davis (diamond), Monday, 17 April 2006 04:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Stormy Davis (diamond), Monday, 17 April 2006 04:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shadow of the Waxwing (noodle vague), Saturday, 17 June 2006 10:32 (seventeen years ago) link
I remember being really disappointed with VDGG after reading a rave about Pawn Hearts, the music just sounded ridiculously bombastic and too 'prog' for my ears at the time, then I suddenly had some kind of epiphany and love the whole thing - I don't think there's a bad moment on the album. My second fave is The Least We Can Do Is Talk to Each Other - those last doom-as-fuck organ chords in the coda to White Hammer!!!
― Rombald (rombald), Saturday, 17 June 2006 11:21 (seventeen years ago) link
Start with "Least We Can Do...", then buy "H To He", then you get "Pawn Hearts" (all re-mastered editions)...then "Silent Corner & The Empty Stage", "In Camera", "Nadir's", "Over", "The Future Now", "ph7" (all not-yet re-mastered).
― So Ho La (So Ho La), Saturday, 17 June 2006 12:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Saturday, 17 June 2006 12:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shadow of the Waxwing (noodle vague), Saturday, 17 June 2006 12:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Saturday, 17 June 2006 12:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― LC (Damian), Saturday, 17 June 2006 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shadow of the Waxwing (noodle vague), Saturday, 17 June 2006 16:48 (seventeen years ago) link
Thank you.
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 00:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Obvious Ninja (Haberdager), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 00:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 00:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 00:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 00:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― Obvious Ninja (Haberdager), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 00:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 01:04 (seventeen years ago) link
is usually the best place to check for news.
LJ i am drunkenly flailing at emails. eventually one might get thru.
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 01:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― Obvious Ninja (Haberdager), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 01:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 01:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 02:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Obvious Ninja (Haberdager), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 02:27 (seventeen years ago) link
*promises to listen to NMTBHTSP after VdGG*
― Obvious Ninja (Haberdager), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 02:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marco Damiani (Marco D.), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 06:34 (seventeen years ago) link
Nadir's Big Chance is great - if his other solo albums are similar it's about time I gave them a try as well. *mental note to get on SoulSeek tonight...
― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 06:53 (seventeen years ago) link
They aren't
― dud Hab 'C' dEva (Dada), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 08:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 08:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 09:16 (seventeen years ago) link
The three albums after Fool's Mate were due for a re-issue and then yanked from schedule for some reason - I'm quite sure I saw them advertised in a mag along with one batch of VDGG re-issues, but then nothing. I have seen promo copies of the remasters with bonus tracks on eBay, minus the finished artwork.
― LC (Damian), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 11:30 (seventeen years ago) link
Anybody care to rank his solo stuff?
― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 12:06 (seventeen years ago) link
― I Supersize Disaster (noodle vague), Wednesday, 30 August 2006 12:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 2 September 2006 17:08 (seventeen years ago) link
Yeah and I guess Voivod is somewhat prolific too but the difference is I was along the whole time for Voivod and came in late to Van der Graaf Generator.
― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Saturday, 13 January 2024 22:46 (two months ago) link
I know Godfrey tried unsuccessfully to sue Barclay James Harvest not too many years ago; I also remember him making the quizzical statement that the Enid were loved at punk clubs because they were so "un-punk" that they were actually perceived as punk, or words to that effect.― Halfway there but for you
― Halfway there but for you
yeah greg lake made the same claim about ELP. see: rick wakeman's "i'm so straight i'm a weirdo". which is _almost_ right. the truth is that being straight is just fucking weird. i mean fundamentally ok a lot of the time, don't get me wrong, but _weird_.
ELP are incredibly hetero, have you not seen the cover of Love Beach?― frogbs
― frogbs
just don't ask d3n1s3 sh4rp3 about carl palmer
i definitely need to check out carmen, a lot of this stuff is like... niche symphonic and symphonic has never really been my jam. also definitely interested in david clark allen's fetish art lol.
but yes The Enid are about the one overtly gay prog band, shame it has to be that guy really.― where did the times go (Matt #2)
― where did the times go (Matt #2)
i mean that's kind of queer shit in general, though... being queer means you go through a lot of shit that cishets don't and that fucks a person up, queer pioneers tend to be kinda fucked up people. if you look at a lot of the people trans people like me try to reclaim as trans, they're kinda awful. elagabalus? terrible, fucked-up person. ed wood? incredibly bad filmmaker and racist drunk. doesn't excuse it, but there's this desire for queer pioneers to be like tom hanks in _philadelphia_, which to me, from what i've seen of that movie and its legitimacy narrative, it kinda distorts a lot of what makes queer people _queer_.
i guess that's the other thing, just being queer doesn't make a person's work queer. i heard dee palmer's solo album just because i wanted to hear what kind of music she would make. i don't hear anything queer at all in it. it's just kind of an ordinary prog record. which is good! i defend that strongly. trans people don't have to make "trans music", like, our entire lives aren't about being trans.
anyway i'm gonna have to listen to their stuff but given that one of their best-known records is "aerie faerie nonsense", yeahhhh that sounds pretty queer. didn't stand out because faeries are _standard in prog_ except it's usually invoked by cishets for some reason? just... to me they're missing out on the best shit about this stuff.
― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 14 January 2024 16:27 (two months ago) link
I get what you're saying but I think you have to separate queerness from sexuality somehow, because prog music is pretty nonsexual as a whole to me. and when it does get horny it always comes off very weird. imo "Ladies of the Road" is worse than just a filler track, it almost ruins the band's entire image (though tbf Crimson was kind of falling apart there anyway). its not just a sex thing either, when prog bands sing about any sort of normal thing (see Triumvirat's concept album about getting laid off at the factory) it just comes off strange to me
there is a modern prog band called The Tangent that sorta pulls it off though, mainly because you just know the dude is an IT worker doing this in his spare time
― frogbs, Sunday, 14 January 2024 16:40 (two months ago) link
"when prog bands sing about any sort of normal thing (see Triumvirat's concept album about getting laid off at the factory) it just comes off strange to me"
surely that's good?
I think Fandangos In Space by Carmen is an essential prog album, just amazing. On David Clark Allen's blog he writes about new flamenco bands.
I always thought the faeries and other fantasy cliches weren't that prevalent in prog but just appear more than in most rock genres. Same with power metal, I expected epic fantasy full time but a lot of the songs are about the things anyone sings about.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 14 January 2024 16:47 (two months ago) link
That Gentle Giant album "Three Friends" sounds like a pretty normal mundane story.
― Bulky Pee Pants (Tom D.), Sunday, 14 January 2024 16:59 (two months ago) link
it is about a gay ogre orgy
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Sunday, 14 January 2024 17:59 (two months ago) link
Troll Throuple
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Sunday, 14 January 2024 18:00 (two months ago) link
I get what you're saying but I think you have to separate queerness from sexuality somehow, because prog music is pretty nonsexual as a whole to me. and when it does get horny it always comes off very weird. imo "Ladies of the Road" is worse than just a filler track, it almost ruins the band's entire image (though tbf Crimson was kind of falling apart there anyway). its not just a sex thing either, when prog bands sing about any sort of normal thing (see Triumvirat's concept album about getting laid off at the factory) it just comes off strange to methere is a modern prog band called The Tangent that sorta pulls it off though, mainly because you just know the dude is an IT worker doing this in his spare time― frogbs
King Crimson's image is really interesting to me! I think they're a very... like not musically complex, but _personally_ complex band. The image of King Crimson often doesn't accord with the reality. That's what I found so fascinating about the recent King Crimson documentary. It really delves into that.
This idea of King Crimson as this non-sexual, intellectual, cerebral band is, as far as I can tell, completely divorced from the reality. The impression I get from Fripp's statements about this period is that he was pretty much a huge slut. "Ladies of the Road" isn't even their first paean to groupies - "Cadence and Cascade" is also on that theme. In the "Larks' Tongues in Aspic" period there were a fair few references to analingus, as well.
I definitely do... I mean I don't differentiate queerness from sexuality in an _absolute_ sense. My gender identity isn't the same thing as my sexual identity. (My sexual identity is one that I've seen described as "WTFSexual", as in "What even is sex?" I'm not asking that ironically. I genuinely do not know what "sex" is supposed to be.)
I guess when I talk about queerness and the lack thereof I look at it kind of along the same lines as Natalie Reed's "Null HypotheCis". The default reading for me of prog isn't asexual or non-gendered. It's cisgender, heterosexual music, whether it's _explicitly_ sexual or not. There are a lot of implicit assumptions in there, things that aren't even noticeable to cishets but just don't track with my own experience and understanding. I mean, look, I don't want to get too sociologist here, but the music of, say, Magma, which is propulsive, repetitive music that drives towards an explosive finale... I'll just say that it _parallels_ normative cis male sexuality. I understand the appeal of that kind of sex. It's not the way I do things. That's not to say that Magma's music is explicitly sexual music or that music is all about sex or whatever whatever. There's just a level of resonance with cis male sexuality that's just _there_, it's congruent in a way where the presence or absence of congruence isn't even a question. And to me, I feel that incongruence pretty strongly.
A lot of what I like about prog rock is what I've seen referred to as "padding", as being "aimless". King Crimson talks of their name being evocative of a "man with an aim". I'm a woman and to the extent that I have an aim, it's mostly to live in and embody the moment. (Which, actually, is King Crimson's aim too... we get along a lot better than the name might suggest!)
Prog rock songs can be very long and while they do tend to eventually get where they're going, it's a long, often scenic trip. They don't get in and out within two minutes. Which, again, I'm not condemning. I think that's pretty cool, having that quick hardcore blast of energy. When I think about myself, how I express myself, that's not how I do things. If I arrive at a conclusion at all, it's almost by accident. That's the feeling I get from my favorite prog - oh, that actually makes sense? I didn't expect that to make sense, I thought we were just wandering around aimlessly. When I do stuff that's... _maybe_ sex? Anyway, that's kind of how I go about things. I'm very fond of the "fuck around and find out" approach.
And there's a sort of tension between that sort of structural _queerness_ I find in prog with the way so much of it is cishet coded. That's kind of what I mean when I talk about music not being queer, I don't necessarily mean explicitly, I mean sometimes people's queerness informs their work, the way cishet people's cishet-ness informs their work. Honestly maybe that's why Palmer's album disappointed me... it's missing any kind of implicit sense of gender or sexual identity whatsoever. It's just kind of _there_.
― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 14 January 2024 18:26 (two months ago) link
― Bulky Pee Pants (Tom D.), Sunday, January 14, 2024 8:59 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm)
six of one, half a dozen of the other
― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 14 January 2024 18:28 (two months ago) link